


The Chambers of the Sea

by voleuse



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-17
Updated: 2004-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:26:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn't think happiness was enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chambers of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Set after "You're Welcome." Title and headings adapted from T.S. Eliot's _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_.

He never tells Xander about the Senior Partners, nor does he explain what he did in Los Angeles, before. That doesn't mean Xander doesn't know about Wolfram and Hart, but Lindsey prefers not to talk about it.

He thinks Xander might enjoy having elephants in the room, because they never talk about Anya, either, or the nights when Xander disappears with one slayer or the other to hunt.

He may be trying to leave his past behind, but he knows Xander never will.

_The muttering retreats  
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels  
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells_

He knows how to make a mean omelette, and Xander's no stranger to miraculously edible sandwiches, but aside from that, the kitchen is just the place they store the beer, and occasionally fuck against a countertop.

The neighborhood bars and diners they frequent should be beneath him, but he never complains. There's something ridiculously comfortable about splitting a plate of onion rings with Xander. A harping voice in the back of his mind keeps urging him to walk away, to turn his back on the fluorescent lights, the cheap coffee, and the gum-snapping waitress they always end up over-tipping.

A part of him is tempted to give in, but he never does.

He can't. Not if he has to walk away from Xander, too.

_In the room the women come and go  
Talking of Michelangelo._

He thinks about Eve sometimes, if Xander isn't around. When he's doing laundry, or tinkering with Mr. Coffee, or if he reads the headlines of a tabloid when he's in line at the grocery store. He can't quite explain the impulse, but it's something about being a normal human being, and Eve never got used to that. He supposes that, in the end, that's what broke her. Them.

Darla, however, is present whenever he sees a guitar. Whenever he passes the _carniceria_ the corner. Whenever he gets a paper cut. (He doesn't think about any other vampires, oh no.)

He thinks about Lilah, too, sometimes. It's easier to think about her around Xander, for some reason. Maybe because thinking about her doesn't hurt.

He wonders if Xander ever thinks about Anya, or Cordelia.

He wonders why he cares.

_The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes  
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening_

When Lindsey was in high school, and all the way until he met Darla, sex was a competitive sport. He fucked because he was good at it, and damn if the whole world shouldn't know.

Then Darla came along, and then Eve, and then...

He wonders what changed in him. When he lost his edge.

These are the things he thinks about, in the moments before Xander's tongue trails over his abdomen. Before he takes Xander's cock in his mouth. Before the frenzy of not-thought washes over him, and he can't think at all.

_There will be time, there will be time  
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;  
There will be time to murder and create_

One day, when they're walking home from the movies, they find a vampire, menacing a little blonde girl in an alleyway.

Lindsey admires the irony.

Xander kills the vampire.

If there's any difference at all in them, that's it, Lindsey thinks. He might have saved the girl, given another minute. (If she had another minute.) Xander didn't even think about it; slaying is second nature to him now.

Lindsey wonders if it's a fault in him, or whether it's just an unusual virtue in Xander.

He asks, when they get home, but Xander doesn't have an answer. He just shrugs, almost wearily, and takes Lindsey in his arms.

They don't fuck that night, but their bodies lie warm together under the sheets.

_In a minute there is time  
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._

It takes Lindsey a while to notice the smaller gestures Xander makes. After a grocery store run, a bag of the pretzels he likes appears on the kitchen table. The salsa they buy is spicier than it was a month ago. After an informal survey of the bathroom cupboard, he realizes that Xander switched shampoos so that they could buy an economy-sized bottle of the brand he uses, instead of two different, smaller bottles.

He's not sure how to say thank you for things Xander never mentions, but does naturally.

The next time it's his turn to shop for groceries, he grabs a box of Twinkies, just because they seems like something Xander might like, and a handful of those chocolate bars Xander always eyes, but never purchases.

When he gets home, he puts them in the kitchen cabinet, without a word.

_I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;  
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker_

Xander gets calls from overseas, every once in a while. When Lindsey realizes what the call is about, he leaves the room. Xander understands.

It's not rejection, not really, but he thinks it's better if he doesn't hear.

It's been a while since he's actively been evil, or even tried to screw good over, out of spite, but he still wants to, sometimes.

Old habits die hard, his grandfather used to say. Cliches are, he knows, occasionally true.

When Xander finishes with the phone call (_LondonTripoliHongKongCairoMinsk_), Lindsey always asks the same question.

"Trouble?"

No matter Xander's response, he's never prepared for the answer.

_Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?  
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.  
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each._

_I do not think that they will sing to me._

Lindsey used to think that he was supposed to rule the world, one way or another. He spent half of his life working toward that goal. He used to crush lives, dazzle juries, and call down lightning on a whim.

His life is quiet now, mundane as the children living in the apartment upstairs.

Sometimes he's surprised that he doesn't mind it more.

He used to hate it, he remembers. He stayed out of necessity and lust, and faint hope that Xander's past might hold a key to something...

Powerful? Something more? Something better?

He's not sure when contentment settled in him, but that's the final word of it.

In the middle of the night, when he wakes from his persistent nightmares, Xander is there beside him.

Sometimes he wakes Xander with a kiss, and a hand easing over his cock. Xander always opens his eyes with a groan, half drowned in sleep, and pumping his hips, like waves, into Lindsey's hand.

Sometimes, though, Lindsey slides his arm around Xander and just _breathes_. Listens to the noise of traffic outside, and the faint beat of a neighbor's stereo, and knows he wouldn't change any of this, ever.

He wonders if this is what happiness feels like, and decides to ask Xander in the morning.


End file.
